FEATURED ARTIST: Dr. Octagon

DR. OCTAGON

Dan The Automator’s and Kool Keith’s famed collaboration from the mid-‘90s is celebrated with a 28-track set housed in a custom, octagonal box, with 5 unreleased songs (originals + remixes); original Pushead cover artwork; and 40 page liner notes booklet.

By the mid-1990s, the rap game had been through a lot in its two decades of existence: Early-days scraping to get by and be heard; The advent of sampling; The rise of groups ranging from Run-DMC to the Wu-Tang Clan and the sprawl of Dr. Dre’s shadow from the West across the globe; and solo juggernauts ranging from MC Hammer to the Notorious B.I.G.

Thankfully, though, with everything that the genre had been through, there was still a lot of room to grow. And in early 1996, a new indie duo appeared that won over a whole new international audience, from hard rocks to skate punks. That pair was Dr. Octagon: Dan “The Automator” Nakamura and Kool Keith [Thornton].

In some ways, the Dr. Octagon album is a solo release. But Keith wasn’t the only hand on deck. He brought along a young, New York-based MC with him: Sir Menelik. Menelik was featured on four album tracks, starting with “Dr. Octagon,” and proved to be an excellent super-scientifical, fast-rhyming foil to Keith. And there was one final featured contributor who helped add to the album’s next-level sound: San Francisco’s DJ Q*Bert, who cuts on half of the album’s songs.

The album originally came out on The Automator’s Bulk Recordings label in early 1996, with cover art by metal and punk cult hero visual artist Pushead. Pressing numbers weren’t huge, but as the year went on, the buzz grew, and a slightly expanded version of the album was released on James Lavelle’s London-based Mo Wax label. Then Dan took an offer from newly-formed major label DreamWorks, to re-release the album with extra tracks in mid-1997. The new domestic pressing allowed for a bigger press push, as well as the group’s first and only video, for “Blue Flowers.”

Dr. Octagonecologyst is one of the most unique rap records the genre has ever seen, and this is the perfect way to celebrate it – whether it’s the first time you have heard this mind-expanding record, or the three thousandth.

Press For Dr. Octagonecologyst

“It’s hard to exaggerate the role that Kool Keith’s debut solo album as Dr. Octagon played in revitalizing underground hip-hop…Dr. Octagon remains as startling and original as the day it was released.”

“Even if there’s something voyeuristic about studying this man– who in real life, may or may not have done time in Bellevue– it works because it’s gripping, not gawk-worthy: Keith is in control of his delusion, and he unravels it into a kind of virtuosity. Look away and you’ll miss one hell of a brilliant car wreck.”

“Kool Keith is unlike any other rapper and Dr. Octagonecologyst is unlike any other hip-hop album ever…It blazed the trail for the late ’90s underground renaissance and was years ahead of what anyone else was doing at the time.”

“If you aren’t laughing, you should be bugging. Kool Keith obviously doesn’t care. You should though, because like every other record Keith has ever been on it will be hailed ten years from now as a classic.”